Bush crony Monica Goodling broke law

Feds rule she used office illegally

The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General issued the first report of their investigation into the politicization of the Department of Justice and it implicates members of the Bush administration.

The full report is called, "An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General."

The Justice Department's report was spurred by the illegal firings of U.S. attorneys in December 2006.

The investigation detailed in the June 24 report does not address the U.S. attorney firings, though the report notes that while jointly investigating, along with the federal Office of Professional Responsibility, "issues related to the removal of certain U.S. attorneys ... we decided to expand the scope of our investigation to include allegations regarding Honors Program and SLIP [Summer Law Intern Program] hiring."

The investigation found the first "direct evidence" for the politicization of the hiring process in 2006, the first full calendar year of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' tenure. Gonzales is not directly implicated in the politicization of the program hiring processes.

Among those that were implicated in the report were former Chief of Staff to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson; White House Liason Jan Williams, and EOUSA Director John Nowacki-- who is still at the department.

Partial

In sum, we concluded that the evidence showed that Goodling violated both federal law and Department policy, and therefore committed misconduct, when she considered political or ideological affiliations in hiring decisions for candidates for career positions within the Department. In particular, the evidence showed that she considered political or ideological affiliations in deciding several waiver requests from interim U.S. Attorneys, in promoting several candidates for career positions, and in disapproving a candidate for an EOUSA career SES position...

In sum, the evidence showed that Sampson, Williams, and Goodling violated federal law and Department policy, and Sampson and Goodling committed misconduct, by considering political and ideological affiliations in soliciting and selecting IJs, which are career positions protected by the civil service laws.